of Greater and Lesser Goddesses

I was criticized not so long ago for a piece I did on the poet's website, analyzing and classifying his totem-muses, the ladies he has written works of or to.

The main criticism came from a taxonomic stance: How dare I classify this muse or that muse as a greater or lesser muse?

Well, it was an attempt to simplify the field, and I do apologize to any feet I tread upon.

I used a few unevenly-applied rules to determine the greater muses (from this point on, I will signify them with the term "MUSE" as opposed to "muse" for the lesser of the breed)

The easy ones came first: The Panthers. Not just the original Panther (aka the Black Panther or the Dark Panther) but also the Leopard or Golden Panther, and the Crimson Panther, also referred to as Brigit.

The Goldenheart, by virtue of "The Goldenheart Cycles" and "The Patchwork Skirt of My Love", she had to be considered a MUSE as well. Using that yardstick (yardstick? we had some kind of bias-neutral measurement? sort of. I decided that one major work or a volume of solid works made one a MUSE.)

With that concept in mind, we had some shoe-ins. The Swallow (his first wife) and Psyche (his first lover) all weighed in by virtue of such works as "Icarus" and "Monument" as MUSES. The Selke just missed the mark, as did Suede, The Angel, Arachne and Aurora.

The Wisp was problematic until I considered "Cithara Song, strummed lightly as the sun leaps the horizon"...slam dunk fot MUSE. The Mad Gypsy? Not so many works as some, but some of his most nakedly erotic works...had to be a major totem.

Let's not forget Pink Jade, but she had those damn beautiful romantic works reminiscent of his Goldenheart works, even though he has since reclassified them as belonging to his abstraction MUSE, Abstra.

In the end I realize that there will probably be shifts as time wears on, but we'll keep an eye on things...and who knows? Maybe there's another muse or two yet in his run (or some shifts in the levels of some as new works are written or discovered)...for more information and the table I wrought, check out The Muses of the Romantic Poet of the Internet